Actor

1925-08-03 · United States · Male

1 series in the catalog

Marvin Daniel Levy (; born August 3, 1925) is an American former football coach who served as a head coach in the National Football League (NFL) for 17 seasons. He spent most of his head coaching career with the Buffalo Bills, leading them from 1986 to 1997. Levy is widely considered the greatest Buffalo Bills coach of all time.

After spending 10 years as head coach in college, Levy was hired to coach the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League (CFL) in 1973. From 1973 to 1977, he won two Grey Cup titles with Montreal. After five seasons coaching the Kansas City Chiefs, Levy helped the Bills become one of the most dominant American Football Conference (AFC) teams during the 1990s.

His greatest success occurred between 1990 and 1993 when he led Buffalo to a record four consecutive Super Bowls, although each game ended in defeat. Levy concluded his head coaching career with 11 playoff victories and four Super Bowl appearances, both of which are the most of head coaches to not win an NFL championship.

After having retired from coaching in 1997, Levy served as the general manager of the Bills from 2006 to 2007. He was inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001 and the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2021.

Early life

Levy was born to a Jewish family in Chicago on August 3, 1925.

In 1943, the day after graduation from South Shore High School in Chicago, Levy enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces. He served as a meteorologist at Apalachicola Army Airfield in Franklin County, Florida, but the war ended before his unit deployed to the Pacific.

Though he was known to use historical examples to inspire his teams, Levy corrected those who used war and combat metaphors to describe football games by telling them that he actually fought in a war (despite not being deployed), and that football and war were in no way comparable. Referring to the Super Bowl, he said "This is not a must-win; World War II was a must-win". Steve Tasker, who played for Levy on the Bills, said

Marv always had a knack for always finding the right thing to say. He wasn't a believer in Knute Rockne, 'Win one for the Gipper' speeches. He didn't like ripping us. But what he said had an effect on us, one way or another. It either got us mad at our opponents or mad at ourselves. Marv was a master psychologist at knowing what buttons to push.

In later years, Levy became a supporter of the World War II Memorial and pushed for World War II veterans to be honored at Super Bowl LIV to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Allied victory in the war, noting that fewer than 3% of those who served in the war were still alive in 2020.

Playing career

Levy was initially recruited to the Wyoming Cowboys football team as a defensive back. The coach who recruited Levy left Wyoming, and Levy was displeased and exhausted by the following coach's round-the-clock training regimen. He transferred to Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa following a single semester.

At Coe College, Levy earned varsity letters in football, track, and basketball. He obtained a degree in English literature, was granted membership in Phi Beta Kappa society, and was twice voted student council president. He was also a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity.

He was admitted to Harvard University for graduate studies in 1951, where he earned a Masters of Arts in English history. His thesis, which he was advised on by Sidney Bradshaw Fay, was on the effect of the Lend-Lease program on English-American relations.

Coaching career

Levy's first coaching job was at St. Louis Country Day School, coaching football and basketball; he coached the school's basketball team to a championship.

College

Two years later, Levy returned to Coe College as an assistant football coach (1953–1954). In his second stint as a head coach, he also won a championship in basketball; future NBA Coach Bill Fitch was one of his players.

In 1954, he joined the coaching staff at the University of New Mexico and was named head coach in 1958. In two seasons as head coach, he guided the Lobos to a 14–6 record and earned Skyline Conference Coach of the Year honors in 1958. He interviewed with the University of California, Berkeley on February 2, 1960, and was announced as the new head coach of the Cal Bears on February 5, 1960. Despite selecting a young Bill Walsh as a coaching assistant, Levy's best record during his four-season tenure as head coach at Cal from 1960 to 1963 was 4–5–1.

He finished his college coaching career with a five-year stint as head coach at the College of William and Mary where he twice earned Southern Conference Coach of the Year honors. In 1965 his team had the school's first winning record in 12 years.

Professional

Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles Rams, and Washington Redskins

Levy began his professional football coaching career in 1969 as kicking teams coach for the Philadelphia Eagles before joining George Allen's staff as a special teams coach for the Los Angeles Rams in 1970. He followed Allen to Washington, D.C., in 1971, where he served as the Washington Redskins' special teams coach for two seasons.

Canadian Football League

Levy then served as the head coach of the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League for five seasons. He coached Montreal to three CFL Grey Cup appearances and two championships, and won the Annis Stukus Trophy (Coach of the Year) in 1974.

Kansas City Chiefs

Levy returned to the NFL in 1978 as head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs. He coached the Chiefs for five seasons with steady improvement each year, but was fired at the end of the strike-shortened 1982 season with a 3–6 record.

Buffalo Bills

Midway through the 1986 season, following a two-year hiatus from coaching and one season as the head coach of the Chicago Blitz of the USFL, Levy returned to the NFL with the Buffalo Bills. Initially hired as a television analyst, Levy replaced Hank Bullough nine games into the regular season as head coach. He finished the season with a 2–5 record.

In 1987, his first full season with the Bills, the team returned to respectability with a 7–8 record and were in the playoff hunt throughout most of the season. The following season the team posted a 12–4 record and won the first of six AFC Eastern Division titles.

With his high-powered "no-huddle" offense, Levy's Bills went on to make four consecutive Super Bowl appearances from 1990 to 1993, the most in league history. Each game ended in defeat, however, tying Levy with Bud Grant and Dan Reeves for the most Super Bowl appearances without a victory. Nonetheless, he is credited with changing the franchise's culture. When the Bills won the 1988 AFC East title, it was only the Bills' fourth playoff appearance since the AFL-NFL merger and their fifth winning season since winning two consecutive AFL titles in 1964 and 1965.

From 1988 through 1997, the Bills were first in the AFC in winning percentage and second only to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFL. Levy, the winningest coach in Bills' history, recorded a 112–70 regular season record and was 11–8 in the playoffs. He was named NFL Coach of the Year in 1988 and AFC Coach of the Year in 1988, 1993, and 1995.

Levy retired after the 1997 season, when he felt that it was time to rest, doing so despite the pleas of Wilson to stay. He later stated that he regretted the decision. He later became an analyst for NFL.com. In 2001, Levy was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Along with former Bills' special-teamer Steve Tasker, Levy did local broadcasts for the Bills' pre-season games from 1998 until being appointed the Bills' general manager in 2006. During the regular season he was a part of the Chicago Bears pregame show on ESPN Radio 1000 (WMVP-AM), as well as a Bears postgame show on Comcast SportsNet.

Early in his tenure with the Bills, an emotional Levy gathered the team around him and exclaimed, "Where else would you rather be than right here…